Nad Al Sheba Review Thursday February 3rd
By Martin Talty
Richard Mullen had to wait an agonising 20 minutes before stewards decided Grazalema could retain the inaugural Dhs200,000 Al Fahidi Fort at Nad Al Sheba last Thursday night.
The Al Fahidi is a new event on the Emirates racing calendar, a conditions event held over 1,600m on the turf, and attracted a field of five, four from Al Quoz Stables.
However, while many were expecting an Al Quoz domination it wasn't to be as Algunnaas, trained by Dhruba Selvaratnam, made Grazalema work very hard for every stride of the race.
Algunnaas was inconvenienced when making his run at the top of the straight and with a clear run would probably have won. However it was Bahamian Bandit who was deemed the culprit, drifting out slightly, and while Grazalema did shift in slightly, stewards found it wasn't enough to affect the result.
Grazalema did have good form when in Europe but may have been the fourth pick of the Al Quoz quartet, headed by Slip Stream who proved to be very disappointing when fifth of the five runners.
Grazalema's victory was the first in the Emirates for Mullen. The horse's win was the third for Al Quoz on the evening following the wins of Nowrass in the 00-95 handicap over 2,000m and Borneo Bot half an hour later in the three-year-old conditions race.
Those two horses were ridden by John Carroll who is in very good form at present and is obviously enjoying the highly successful New Year form of Al Quoz.
The final event of the evening was for amateur riders and the race proved to be a bittersweet affair for Sheikh Rashid bin Mohammed Al Maktoum.
Sheikh Rashid had four runners in the race and opted for the Erwan Charpy-trained Satin Secret in the race however after dashing to the front at the 250m, Satin secret was ground down in the final stages by Meldorf and Aljathaab.
Satin Secret held on for third with Baltic Lowland fourth, the first four placegetters owned by Sheikh Rashid with victory going to the only lady rider in the race, Samantha Beddoes.
